RESIDENTS at a tiny home village are being forced out of their homes after a sudden rent increase of $400.

Tiny homes should offer those on lower incomes more affordable housing, but those living at a mobile home park in Washington are finding that this is no longer the case.

Butch Coic has lived at Aberdeen’s Leisure Manor Estates for 40 years but following the 2021 acquisition of Leisure Manor by Hurst & Son LLC, steep rental increases mean he is on the verge of “economic eviction.”

The 61-year-old told Crosscut: “What am I going to do? I have no other option but to tear my trailer down and move on.

“I ain’t gonna give it to them – there’s no way in hell.

“These people don’t care about the elderly or anybody. It’s just all they care about is money.”

In addition to soaring rents, tenants have also complained about alleged issues with maintenance and upkeep since the company took over.

According to those living at the park, their rent was previously around $485 per month, including utilities.

However, since the new ownership, they claim that they now have to pay 55 percent more at $750 per month.

In addition to this, there is a monthly fee of around $100 per month for garbage and sewer services.

The company also allegedly scrapped its landscaping service, forcing its senior tenants to care for their own lawns and the communal areas.

In order to do this, some tenants who have reduced mobility and energy are forced to hire people to mow the lawns or face a $65 fee.

Resident Judie Short who has lived at the site for five years told The Colombian: “When we moved in five years ago, it was going to be an affordable place to live, and … everybody here got along so well.

“We had activities and you could go out and walk and visit with people and it’s just a good community – and now everybody’s nervous and nobody knows what’s going to happen next.

Hurst & Son has been expanding with it owning 60 sites since 2017 – the majority of purchases made during the pandemic.

Over the past six years, the company has spent at least $116million on 35 parks in the state, according to county assessor office records, seen by The Colombian.

The management company has collected a number of complaints from the tenants of its various sites who have spoken out about issues such as large rent increases, E. coli contamination, and flooding.

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Victoria O’Banion who works to get manufactured homeowners to purchase their communities via ownership cooperatives has hit out at management companies such as Hurst & Son.

She noted that such companies blame market rates for rent spikes and said that more money is needed to improve the community but this is what O’Banion calls the “gentrification cycle.”

Speaking to The Colombian, she explained that such companies price out their tenants to increase the value and sell the park for higher than they bought it for.

“Eventually, Grandma Sally is economically evicted,” she said.

Residents from numerous Hurst & Son sites have attempted to rally together in a bid to fight back.

As part of this action, they contacted Anne Sadler, the president of the Washington Association of Manufactured Homeowners who has been aware of Hurst & Sons for a while.

“They’re all about the money, that’s all they care about,” she told the news outlet.

“They care nothing about these people.

“Another little, frail, elderly woman who could barely struggle out of her unit came up to me and she said, ‘I’m not going to be able to pay my rent.

“‘I’m not going to be able to live here. I have nowhere else to go.'”

Tenants have been told to go to the state’s attorney general’s office which manages a Manufactured Housing Dispute Resolution Program.

According to Crosscut, the attorney general’s office has at least 102 complaints against Hurst & Son since 2016 – 82 of these are closed.

Hurst & Son explained in emails to the attorney general’s office that it followed guidance from the Manufactured/Mobile Home Landlord-Tenant Act and notified tenants of rental increases, The Colombian reported.

Former attorney Ishbel Dickens who has worked on tenant rights for those in manufactured housing said that the act prevents homeowners from being evicted without cause.

However, Dickens noted that there are no limits enforced on rent increases so landlords like Hurst & Son “could evict them just by making it too expensive to stay there.”

O’Banions warned: “Manufactured homes must be preserved, maintained, and developed as part of the landscape of affordable housing.”

Meanwhile, Hurst & Son tenants are continuing to organize and protest their rent increases and additional living fees.

The U.S. Sun has reached out to Hurst & Son for comment.